Counter to many people’s perceptions of younger generations in the workforce, the 18- to 35-year-old group was least likely to definitely speak up or complain about the poor user experiences they were having with enterprise software. Those over 35 were most likely to definitely say something but extremely unlikely to simply suffer in silence.
This pattern may be due in part to the fact that younger managers may feel, perhaps with justification, that they lack influence within the organization so speaking up would have no effect.
Meanwhile, those most likely to say something about their negative software experiences were respondents over 45 years, who would have more influence and also a good deal of experience with both business and consumer-level technologies and have begun to expect the same ease of use in business as they see in consumer technology.
ERP: Who's Running the Show?
In mid-2011, a study was conducted by IFS North America and Mint Jutras, among manufacturing executives and professionals of middle market to large manufacturers, to understand how usability challenges may cause individuals to work outside established enterprise software systems, generating lost value for the manufacturer. Working outside of enterprise systems results in barriers to the enterprise-wide visibility that ERP and other enterprise software are designed to provide, enterprise risk as work is performed outside of the security and traceability provisions of enterprise software, and places enterprise data in online repositories where data ownership and security are even more questionable.
The study focused on the degree to which corporate citizens will take action as the result of enterprise software usability challenges including the use of various types of PC-based software and the types of online free or low-cost applications. Generational differences were also explored using four different age groups.
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